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“Cass?” The name shoots out of my mouth. I recall the blond woman I had seen in the background of Daniel’s photo. The woman talking to Lucy, who I was sure was Cass. If itwasCass, then my instincts were right. Everything I’ve done would have been worth it. But I know before her name is out of my mouth that I’m wrong.
“No,” Alani says, and my shoulders slump. “The other blond. The Swedish one.”
I stare at her, processing, before the name bubbles to my lips.
“Greta.”
34
CASS
I can hear Greta rustling around the kitchen as I thread my arms through the zip-up hoodie she’s lent me, knocking my elbow against the wall of her tiny bathroom in the process.
Then the rustling stops. Like most of the island’s apartments, the walls are thin, and after a moment of silence, I hear Greta’s voice, too quiet for me to make out what she’s saying. Curious, I lean my ear against the door, straining to hear. Is someone else here? Is it Logan?
Carefully, I depress the handle to the bathroom door and push. It opens with a squeak that echoes off the tiled walls of the bathroom. I freeze, waiting for Greta to turn down the hallway to come check on me. But she doesn’t.
It’s silent, and I consider returning to the bathroom. But then Greta’s voice starts again, faint, as if she’s intentionally trying to shield her conversation from me.
Slowly, I take a step down the hallway, toward the kitchen. I feel a bit ridiculous, spying on Greta, the one person who I can turn to in a time like this. But why is she being so quiet?
I continue walking until I’m almost at the kitchen. But as I take another tiptoed step, the floorboard beneath me lets out a betraying squeak.
Greta’s head whips around. In the light of the candles around the kitchen, she looks unfamiliar, and for a moment, I feel as though I’m standing with a stranger.
“Sorry,” I mouth, thinking fast. “I’m done changing, and I heard you on the phone. I didn’t want to interrupt.”
Greta shoos my apology away, smiling now. And just like that, the old Greta is back.
“That’s great,” she says into the phone, her voice now a normal volume. “We’ll be right there. She’ll be happy to see you.” She hangs up, walks over to me. “That was Logan. I hope you don’t mind that I called him, but I wanted to help make this right.”
She rubs my arm, and my face grows warm, a mixture of gratitude and shame commingling in my chest. What was I doing spying on one of my closest friends?
“Come on, love,” she says, already heading toward the door. I follow her, still lost in thought.
Greta pauses at the door to slip on her rain jacket. As I wait, I look around the tiny living room, my eyes landing back on the coffee table and the yearbook I’d seen earlier. That same thought from earlier niggles at the back of my mind, an idea just out of reach.
“Greta?”
“Hmm?” she asks, head down as she zips her jacket.
“What doesengelskaläraremean in Swedish?” I ask, my tongue tripping awkwardly over the unfamiliar consonants.
“English teacher,” she responds distractedly. “Why?”
And then it all clicks. The connection that’s been nudging atme since I saw her yearbook. I remember the conversation I had with Greta when I first got to the island. How she told me that she’d fallen in love with Alice at school and how Alice’s parents had disapproved.
Greta wasn’t Alice’s classmate. She was her teacher.
I think about how unhappy Alice always seemed, constantly reminiscing about Sweden. She never wanted to come here. That was Greta. What Greta did, having—or forcing—a relationship with Alice, was illegal. Greta didn’t bring Alice here because she wanted to get away. She did it because it was the only way they could be together.
I realize I never answered Greta’s question, and she’s eyeing me curiously.
“No reason,” I say, but my lie comes out stiff.
If Greta lied about her relationship with Alice, what else did she lie about?
I think back to the mumbled conversation I overhead Greta having on the phone. If she was talking to Logan like she said, then why was she being so quiet? What didn’t she want me to overhear?
